


Triggers

by Fanfic_Annie



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Emotions, F/F, Feelings, Healing, Love, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-14 01:32:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16030232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanfic_Annie/pseuds/Fanfic_Annie
Summary: Charity heals.





	Triggers

**Author's Note:**

> So. I was massively triggered by the trial this week, thankfully it manifested when I was in a big field with a wonderful wise and skilled woman who could handle me. My trauma is totally unrelated to abuse and kidnap but hey, its still trauma and its still horrible and it still got triggered. 
> 
> So I got to thinking about the healing process and this is my take on how it can happen for Charity. 
> 
> Probably its mostly catharsis for me, but hey, someone might enjoy reading it.

Some mornings she wakes and she’s fine. Calm. Collected. Herself. Seeing good in the world and feeling love in her heart. She likes waking up with Vanessa then. With a cuddle and a cup of tea in bed before the day starts. Anything is possible, she has no limits. She smiles and she laughs at these days. 

She has more of these days now. They help her believe that she is ok. That she isn’t damaged, and broken, and beyond redemption. Days she can believe she is different from how she used to be. She is different. These days are real. They’re not make-believe, or delusional. She doesn’t feel like she’s pretending on these days. She feels like she is healing. And that one day she will only have days like these. 

Other days it’s not like that. On those days she has a heaviness in her chest, dragging her breathing down, sucking away her energy. She can’t always recognise it at first, a slight disquiet niggling away in the recesses of her brain. Unwilling to expose itself. She doesn’t pay too much attention to it, because it’s small. It’s easy to pretend it’s nothing and switch her focus elsewhere. She thinks it will pass. Quietly, in the back of her mind she tries to work out what it is but she can’t so she leaves it be. Hoping it will evaporate as the day passes. 

Sometimes the feeling goes away on its own. And sometimes it lingers. For days. 

As she begins to understand her trauma and its residual impact she learns to trace it back. To the trigger. It might be the tone of someone’s voice. A dismissive comment, unthinkingly directed at her, or Vanessa. No, not Vanessa. She deals with that immediately. She goes full into attack mode and destroys the thing and its perpetrator dead before it can become anything, for her or V. And to be fair, that only happens if she can get in before Vanessa deals with it herself. 

But a thoughtless comment directed at her can hit an unintended mark. Something muttered, overheard that wasn't meant for her ears. Triggering feelings of being out of control, cowering beneath unasked-for domination. 

It might be that she finds herself in the wrong position in a room, too far away from the door without a clear route to the exit. Sometimes a room feels too small or too crowded with the door closed. Then she breaks out in a cold sweat and grapples with the urge to flee, sometimes resisting and sometimes succumbing, clearing an escape path with her sharp words and acid tongue.

The trigger can be too subtle for her to register, a smell vaguely reminiscent of a 90s council flat, a whiff of cheap vodka activating her taste buds, bringing unwanted salivation. An unexpected hunger pang rippling at her stomach, wiping her memory of her full purse and well-stocked fridge, crashing waves of panic through her bloodstream.

Or it might be more obvious. A violent TV programme. A song that unlocks a memory and stimulates a feeling that she is not prepared for and is not welcome. Or it could be a bad dream, her psyche processing that which her brain believes she is ready for even when she thinks she isn't, bringing unease and unrest with the dawn. Even taking a bend too fast can make her adrenaline spike, recalling the danger in nicking a car to get away. 

And when it does happen, no matter how inconsequential or unrelated It seems, her physiology reacts. It’s not a conscious thing, it enters her body, not her mind. So its hard to know its there, beyond a slight tightening of the gut, a faint shiver in the limbs, a ripple across the heart. Too small to notice immediately, so it sits and festers, feeding on her insecurities, her fear that it will all come tumbling back. And as it feeds, it grows.

At some point she becomes aware. That's she's not ok, even if she doesn't know why. And then she has choices. She can ignore it, try to push it down in the hope that it'll go away. She can stop and face it, trying to understand what's going on and exorcise it with mental will. Neither of those two are terribly successful strategies although she's getting better at them. 

If she catches it in time she can go to Vanessa. She doesn't have to do anything other than acknowledge that she is not ok and Vanessa helps. She talks to her, stays close and keeps contact. Asking nothing of her, just giving her a safe place to let herself feel, to sit with the discomfort until she finds peace.

Recently she has started to talk. Finding the words that come slowly, in stuttered staccato, choked out between jagged breaths. But they are coming. For the first time in her life she is articulating her pain. And learning that putting a name to it lessens its power. And takes away the fear.

Sometimes she can't or she won't or she just doesn't stop it. Sometimes she needs it, for the trigger to unleash some bad, bad energy that she doesn't know what else to do with. Then she turns it on herself, drinking it away, losing herself physically as well as metaphorically. She can go AWOL for days. But she always comes back, crawling into Vanessa's bed and Vanessa's arms to sleep it off and recover with the loving stroke of her brow.

She still can unleash it on some unsuspecting soul, fighting and attacking and raging. Running away on some escapade to scam and cheat. The police get involved. They watch out for her, still feeling some residual guilt for the part they played in her downfall. Keeping her away from too much trouble, bringing her home. To Vanessa. 

But these episodes are getting fewer and farther between now. She likes being present in her life, knowing where she is and what surrounds her. So the benders are becoming shorter, she still hits hard but misses herself quicker and sobers up faster.

She has learned to accept it as an integral part of her. Acceptance helps to lessen its hold. She is healing. She has stability in her work, her family, her love. She takes comfort in that so she keeps a lid on it as much as she can and tries to manage the other times to lessen the impact.

And soon the good days come back. When the sun warms her face and the wind blows her hair as she walks down the street hand-in-hand with Vanessa. Cheering up the punters with a quick retort and an understanding smile. Making food for their boys, centring herself in her loud and bumptious family. 

It will never go away, she knows that now. But it has lessened its grip on her. She is no longer at its mercy and she is in control of her life, herself. And she likes herself, not just because she survived, but because she knows who she is and what she has. And she is grateful for the journey that led her here, to her life, to her family, to Vanessa. 

To Charity.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment x


End file.
